Putting the customer first is hardly a new concept but it remains probably one of the most important rules in business if you want to be successful.

A happy customer is easy to work with, they’re friendly, they pay their bills on time and best of all they sing your praises; so chances are, having heard what a fantastic service or product you provide, your customers friends will want to experience it for themselves.

In our experience, the best way to keep your customers happy is to listen to them. Providing a service as varied (and often complicated) as marketing means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to success and we daresay this is the case in most sectors. Tailoring your service to your customer’s specific needs will generate better results for you both and in turn it’ll build a trusting relationship between you, which will continue to develop the longer you work together.

It all sounds very simple and straight forward doesn’t it – but like most things the return of investment is proportionate to the effort that you put in. If you want to maintain a good relationship, there’s work to be done.

Good communication between a business and its customers should be a constant – especially in this industry - following up on your service once a project is complete isn’t enough, waiting until a job is complete before asking for feedback could mean you miss something along the way, leaving room for error. In order to deliver results you need to know what your customers expect from you and this can change from one day to the next – so it’s important you don’t get complacent.

There are hundreds of ways to keep in touch with your customers from the humble phone call to the customer survey. Whether you use purpose built CRM software, or you send out printed questionnaires about the level of service you provide – the feedback you receive from clients is invaluable.

It can offer suggestions on how to improve your service, what you should do more or less of, what works well in particular situations – the list is endless and it only serves to improve your business.

However, you should be prepared to listen to what you might not want to hear sometimes. We recently asked a client for some feedback on our work following a project where we rebranded their company and subsequently created their new website, as well as a suite of corporate literature and marketing materials; this is what they said:

“It was awful.  At times I wanted to put a silver bullet in my head, it was so torturous.  Avoid this bunch of Geordie charlatans at all costs”.

Thankfully this testimonial was a joke (hopefully that much is obvious) as there’s really no coming back from that. This example demonstrates how important it is to maintain a good communication with your customers throughout a project and never let an issue snowball to the point where it can’t be avoided or fixed.

The true measure of a company can be seen by how effectively they deal with complaints. Mistakes happen, we’re only human after all but often an apology or explanation, coupled with measures to rectify the mistake quickly will be enough to assure your customer of your best attention and intentions.

Your happy customers are your highest performing PR officers; after all in essence PR is all about your reputation. Mix trust and reliability to your connection with your customers and great PR is the result. Furthermore in a more practical sense, a customer’s feedback can provide excellent case studies of your work as well as stories that could become PR opportunities both internally and externally.

On top of it all – happy customers make you feel great about the work you do everyday – here’s what that client really had to say about working with us:

“We were introduced to Silver Bullet after being underwhelmed with the lack of quality and creativity on offer from several design agencies in and around London. Being an exiled native of the North East, I was keen to see what Silver Bullet might be able to offer. After several discussions by phone followed up with a personal visit from Kerry and Vic to our office in Richmond upon Thames, it became clear that this was the organisation to confidently and enthusiastically lead us through the maze of considerations in front of us when embarking upon the creation of a new brand identity and successfully transferring that to a new website, brochure, stationery et al.

It was a long process as we had exacting demands. We made many changes along the way but never once did Silver Bullet flinch (well, they certainly hid it well). Kerry was constantly available when we needed to make changes or simply to ask a question.

The finished article was a triumph. We could not have been more delighted with our new brand and the quality and look of the website. Silver Bullet absolutely nailed it. When we saw it all for the first time it was clear that they had been able to turn our thoughts into reality without us actually being able to explain how it should look. It was like seeing what we’d been imagining, for the first time.”

Want to connect with your customers and create fantastic PR? Talk to us.